thanksgiving on hallow eve day

I wanted to post a family picture. I can see it vividly in my head, and must have seen it recently, but in the chaos of boxes that passes for the family archives, I cannot find it. Obviously, my next project is to bring some kind of order to this, if only so I can post what I'm seeing.

This picture is a photo of my grandmother, her sister-in-law, and my mother preparing a holiday meal, all turned laughing, toward the camera. They are wearing full aprons to cover their holiday dresses. It is Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can smell the turkey, taste that French-Canadian stuffing, hear the clink of ice cubes in the rye and water.

When I was very young and my grandmother's family was still around, there was much patois bantered back and forth. The French language was lost with my mother and her brother, but both their parents had French-Canadian roots going back to the 1800's and earlier, in Essex County, and even further back in Quebec. In the 30's and 40's when my mother and her brother were growing up in Essex County, French was not an official language, nor a language of commerce.

But it was a gentle reminder of my grandmother's early life on a turn-of-the-century farm.

And of a story of my grandmother Evelyn, helping my uncle Floyd, an A-student, with his French homework. The patois had exchanged "potates" for the official "pommes de terre", and officially ended my grandmother's short life as a tutor of francaise.

shadow and light

Photo: Kalpita

Both of my parents have passed away in the year marked by the end of this September. I have not written much about it because it has been too close. I will probably be writing about it now, at different times, in different ways, because now I can. I'm not sure I have any readers at all, but if I do, I hope these passages will not depress. They are not meant to.

Death, as the Canadian Somalian-born rapper, K'naan, imparts in an interview with Mike Armitage, is just another side of life. And when one is surrounded by it, lives with it day-to-day, it is the shadow that illuminates the light. Our modern society is estranged from death and the cycle of nature. Births rarely take place in the bedroom with family gathered around. Deaths rarely do either. Only recently have our governments placed laws allowing people to take time off work, without penalty, to care for loved ones.

I am a mature adult, and my parents have died in the natural progression of the wheel that is life. Yet, I have not been in this place before, in this way, and many things are new and different.

walkin' the walk

I've been away from the blogs for far too long, having recently finished my six weeks on The Ryersonian. During that time there have been things I wanted to blog about, but did not.
One of them I'm going to mention now.
My former classmate and fellow Windsorite, Mr. Joe Galiwango, had a film premiere almost a month ago.
Living for Rap is an hour-long film documenting two of Toronto's rappers and the rap scene in this city. Joe wrote it and directed it and pieced the film together.
It premiered at the first annual Commffest Community Film Festival held at the Performing Arts Lodge.
Just want to spread the word and sing his praises for walkin' the walk when things get tough and discouraging, and not giving up on the dream.